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Nicolas Maduro

After three postponements, Nicolas Maduro finally went to the National Assembly Monday night to deliver his long-awaited “Esequibo speech”. How was it? It was a three hour-long, rambling, contradictory mess. The speech showed not only the weak case Venezuela has but the way the government has mismanaged its claim in the last 15 years – and don’t forget, Maduro…

One week ago, Nicolas Maduro announced during his weekly TV show that he would address the National Assembly on June 25th, in order to present what he calls “…the official position in defense of the historic claim, the dispute over the Esequibo, and to ask for the national unity…”. Then the speech was postponed for…

The FIFA scandal continues to dominate headlines worldwide, particularly after Sepp Blatter announced on Tuesday he would step down after being reelected for a fifth term four days earlier. Venezuela is right at the center of the scandal, as Rafael Esquivel, the head of our football federation for the last 27 years, was one of the…

After yesterday’s announcement that government working hours will be cut to save electricity, Nicolas Maduro tried to justify the measures in his weekly TV show by putting most (if not all) of the blame on sorry-ass consumers and especially on their overuse of Air Conditioning and TV sets. His response? Launching “a really nice PR campaign”…

Our friend Daniel Lansberg-Rodríguez took the issue of Maduro’s stunt double in Panama, and ran with it – all the way to the end zone. He weaves a masterful put-down over at Foreign Policy’s Transitions blog. The whole piece is well worth your time, but here is the highlight for me: The act of picking out one’s own…

What is “eco-socialism”? It’s basically the central government’s term for both its environmental policy and for the ministry in charge of it (which just changed its denomination to Environment and Waters, as Audrey has pointed out). But what does “eco-socialism” really stand for? Mostly, it’s for using environmental issues as political taglines. For example, the government’s PR…

Maduro received the power today to rule by decree. It is the second time he has had these. Hugo Chávez had a ton of these during his tenure. You know what? It does not matter. Maduro could do whatever he wanted yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Does he have any constraints on governance? Perhaps, but if he does,…